Which to use
“picon” and “pilon” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,094
- “picon” frequency rank
- #24,716
- “pilon” frequency rank
- 68810
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | picon | pilon |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Laine de rebut qu’on achète chez les fabricants de lainages fins, et qu’on revend aux fabricants de lainages communs. | Instrument dont on se sert pour piler quelque chose dans un mortier, pour écraser quelque chose dans un mortier. |
Where the eye mixes picon and pilon
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. picon and pilon follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: picon vs pilon
A purely visual mix-up. picon (\pi.kɔ̃\) and pilon (\pi.lɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - c in “picon” becomes l in “pilon”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68810, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
picon is recorded at frequency rank #44,094, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.kɔ̃\. pilon is at rank #24,716, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.lɔ̃\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 68810, this pair ranks #57,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of picon vs pilon
Shared letters: inop. Private to "picon": c. Private to "pilon": l.
"picon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "pilon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "picon" and "pilon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "picon" vs "pilon" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "picon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pilon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #57,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "picon" and "pilon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "picon vs pio". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #57,596 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.